Patricia Karvelas, Host: The Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, is my guest this afternoon. Welcome to the program.
Penny Wong, Foreign Minister: Good morning. Good to be with you PK.
Karvelas: We've seen a bus with players on it depart their Gold Coast hotel. There's also been images, which Andrew Hastie described as concerning, of them being put on that bus. What's the latest?
Foreign Minister: Minister Burke made the announcements earlier today and as did the Prime Minister, that we have been approached by five of the players to ask for assistance and Minister Burke has made the decisions to, that he is able as Home Affairs Minister, to provide them with visas. We've also said very publicly if there are other members of the team who wish to talk with Australian Government officials, we're available. But obviously–
Karvelas: Do you expect any other players now to seek asylum?
Foreign Minister: These are very sensitive matters and you would understand why. We do have a regime which has had a history of cracking down on its people. And so I'm reluctant to engage in a lot of detail about this, but we've made that public offer and we've also acted on the five players or the five team members that we've described.
Karvelas: I want to move to our deployment to the Middle East. Does it have anything to do with our alliance with the United States? Did Donald Trump ask us to be part of it as well?
Foreign Minister: This is a decision that is very firmly grounded in Australia's national interest. And you would have heard me say yesterday– was it the day before, sorry, Sunday–
Karvelas: One of the days.
Foreign Minister: Yeah, that's right. That our focus has been very much on this simple question, what do we need to do that best keeps Australians safe here and abroad. And that has informed our judgement about what we have said about the conflict and also, the judgement about the deployments. Now this, as the Prime Minister said this morning, we are responding in the specific to a written request from the UAE. Obviously, there have been a number of requests all about the defence of Gulf countries. And as you know, these Gulf countries have not been attacking Iran, but Iran has been attacking them.
Karvelas: No absolutely that's right, but I just want to clarify, did the United States say they would like us to be involved in this defensive role?
Foreign Minister: Look, this is a– the deployment is a response to a written request from the UAE. And I do want to say this is something we have been working on for some time.
Karvelas: But it has nothing to do with the United States? I mean, people are asking that question. It's a reasonable question.
Foreign Minister: Well, it's a UAE request, but of course, we have had requests from other countries.
Karvelas: Including the United States?
Foreign Minister: Well they all deal with, I'm not going to go into every request, but they all deal with the same issue, which is how do you protect countries who are being attacked by Iran? And I'll make this point if I can come back to your first question. Why have we determined to do this? Again, we have 115,000 Australians in the region. We have 24,000 in the United Arab Emirates, as at the start of the conflict. We have an obligation to think through how is it best to keep those Australians safe in circumstances when they are, this country and this region is being attacked by Iran. Now, this is not– this is a new dimension to the Middle East conflict. If you might recall, and I think you might have interviewed me in the last conflict, you know, that was much more contained. We have had 12 countries be attacked. And so that means Australians who live and are travelling through countries which have not normally been attacked are being attacked.
Karvelas: No, there's no doubt about it, but on the question, I don't mean to be rude, but on the question of whether the United States, which is not just any ally, it's really our most important ally, also would have liked us to do this and made that clear. It's a reasonable thing to ask. Is that what they express that they would like us to do?
Foreign Minister: We're responding to a written request from the UAE.
Karvelas: That doesn't mean they didn't ask.
Foreign Minister: Well, no, but I think it is reasonable to say what the Prime Minister said is we are responding directly to a written request from the United Arab Emirates. But can I make a broader point because this US point matters. What I have said, you know, and I know you went to this also in your podcast as well, I understand people look at this and people who remember what occurred in the Iraq war, which is why I was very explicit in one of my interviews, and saying, look, this is not Iraq, we are not the Howard government and we are not saying to Australians we want your support to deploy ground troops into Iran in this war. We are not saying to Australians we want to participate in the attacks on Iran. What we are saying is our posture is defensive, we want to protect Australians and we want to protect our friends. That is very clearly how we are approaching this and that is the basis of this deployment. Now, I appreciate that people have this history in their head, but it is useful to actually look at the facts in front of us and the decisions that the Government is making.
Karvelas: Ok, you've argued we won't be drawn into offensive action. You just made that really clear there. But what if our military assets are targeted by Iran? Could that shift?
Foreign Minister: Well, we hope they are not. Let's–
Karvelas: No, absolutely. But if it were to happen, is that something we'd revisit?
Foreign Minister: Well, we have Australian law, Australian policy and Australian direction applies to our assets and I'm not going to go into every contingency, but Australian law, policy and direction applies to assets. But it is a different thing to be party to, participating in or being part of striking Iran. We've made clear we're not. That is not the focus of that, the focus of this is to protect.
Karvelas: And do we have any sense of the length of our commitment? It's not a small thing, of course, to deploy, as you know, and I'm sure the Government pored over the decision. Given that, do we have a time frame, what we are prepared to do?
Foreign Minister: The announcement was for a four week deployment and obviously, we will–
Karvelas: And would we revisit that if the war was continuing?
Foreign Minister: This, this conflict has gone far wider and has been much more intense than I think most people would have assessed. If we, if you'd asked us two weeks ago, if you'd, you know, if you'd had most people on this program, most people would not say within 72 hours of the conflict we would have had 10 plus countries attacked, including a NATO country and most, if not all of the Gulf states. That would not have been something people anticipated.
Karvelas: No, I think that's right. But do you share Donald Trump's view that the war is almost complete?
Foreign Minister: Well, I've not–
Karvelas: Do you hope he's right?
Foreign Minister: Well, of course we want to get to a position. The way I put it would be this: this is this conflict has intensified and it has escalated. At some point we do need to move to dialogue and diplomacy. And, you know, obviously the key players there are the countries Iran and the United States. And Iran has been continuing to attack civilian targets, civilian infrastructure in countries which have not been involved in attacking them. And that has to stop. That is the way to get to de-escalation.
Karvelas: Penny Wong, come again. Thanks for coming on the show.
Foreign Minister: Good to see you.